President Obama has a lot on his plate: health care, energy independence, employee free choice. To succeed, he will need Democrats in Congress and the base united behind this agenda.

With all that at stake, why in the world would Obama’s Trade Representative be pushing a quick vote on Bush’s leftover NAFTA expansion deal with Panama? This deal is opposed by the base and most congressional Democrats. Its passage would create a glide path for Bush’s outrageous NAFTA expansion with world unionist murder capitol Colombia.

Just last month, Obama’s Trade Representative Ron Kirk announced his team was working “rigorously” to pass Bush’s leftover Panama NAFTA expansion deal. Fifteen years of terrible U.S. trade policy has led to job loss, downward pressure on wages and a flood of unsafe imported food and products.

Instead of more of the same, it’s time bad agreements like NAFTA get renegotiated and future trade deals benefit us, not just big multinational corporations.

Let’s not forget 1993. The last time a new Democratic president took on a leftover Bush trade deal, Clinton’s push to pass NAFTA killed the political unity and wasted the honeymoon momentum needed to pass health care reform. Democrats lost their majority in the next election as labor household turnout plummeted.

With our economy in recession, and so many other progressive priorities pending, the last thing we need is more NAFTAs!

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